The suicide of an English woman in a hotel room on the 4th of October, 2014 made worldwide headlines. Her name was Brenda Leyland from the village of Burton Overy in Leicestershire. Leyland died two days after a well-publicized encounter with Sky News crime reporter Martin Brunt.

Brunt is a well known journalist in the UK; hence, one would think Leyland was some public figure accused of murder, sex offending, or mass fraud. However, Leyland, a 63-year-old mother of two, was unknown to the public at large. She had no criminal convictions either; thus, what was her heinous crime? Well, she was an aggressive critic of the McCanns and their supporters on Twitter!

This two-part follow-up to our popular 2013 article here at TSW will discuss “Team McCanns” targeting of Leyland (something they deny). This woman is the most recent, and tragic example of their aggressive war on freedom of expression and speech. Therefore, in light of the support for Leyland the author decided to address a niggling question concerning the McCanns current popularity.

Twitter: An Online Post-Apocalyptic Australia

Via her Twitter ID, @Sweepyface, Leyland mentioned the McCanns in some 5000 plus tweets. Many were not nice; she was decidedly obsessive and she did hang out with some rather nasty anti-McCann figures.

Leyland appears to be the typical online brawler you see all over the wastelands, yet she rarely used profanity, nor did she threaten the McCanns physically. She was not even the leader or spokesperson of any anti-McCann group. Hell, at the time of her death, the woman only had 183 followers.

Apparently, the McCanns do not have an official Twitter presence (more about that later). Therefore, most of her tweets targeted media, the police, and pro-McCann individuals. I hasten to add there are some genuinely nice people concerned about Maddie, who believe/disbelieve the McCanns.

Nevertheless, online there are far more critics of the couple than supporters. This does not sit well with a coordinated, hard-core, pro McCann Internet counter-offensive or their allies in the MSM. Neither group will admit to the dilemma of the McCanns online unpopularity; because, in so doing they risk admitting the McCanns unpopularity in the real world.

Blaming Everyone, But Our PR Strategy

Media interest in the McCann case was inevitable; however, rather than tighten the screws and go to ground, the pair made themselves high profile celebrities in the process.

Any-and-all public figures get mean and nasty comments said about them. The truly awful stuff clearly does need investigating. Furthermore, one can only imagine the vitriol aimed at people who made fortunes amidst allegations of negligence with their kids. Hell, regardless of the cash bonus it would be horrible to lose one’s child.

Thus, to a degree, one empathizes with McCann supporters’ mantra “let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” Nonetheless, the author also agrees with a comment on Yahoo Answers…

"I’d have a lot more sympathy for them if they used their fame to advertise that you shouldn’t leave small children without a responsible adult in charge because of the possible terrible consequences. Instead, it’s all ‘it was someone else’s fault, we demand that even MORE public money is spent investigating it.'" (1)

For all their millions spent on getting crud advice, why didn’t they employ this bright spark as their PR guru? Someone had to be sniffing glue when their PR advocated the following.

On the third anniversary of her disappearance, the McCanns used an awkward image of an unsmiling Madeleine in makeup (clearly put on by an adult). Kids playing dress up usually smear makeup all over their faces. Moreover, they look like they are having a great time (she didn’t). Sure, she may have just been tired; nevertheless why take only one photo? If there are more, why release one of her looking grim? If they were so concerned about possible abduction by perverts why did they use a picture of their kid in make-up? Hell, why ignore professional advice against their bombarding the press with Maddie’s image in the first place? (2)

The McCanns are now concerned about their twins growing up, going online and reading horrible stuff about Madeleine, Mum, and Dad. Kate and Gerry were not thinking too hard about their children reading their own “horrible stuff”.

In extracts from Kate’s book published in the Sun, she discussed her intimacy issues with Gerry in the aftermath of Praia De Luis. Moreover, at the same time other parts of her book have leaked online. If you couldn’t get enough of sexy Gerry, you can read Kate’s musings on her perfect daughters’ violation by kidnappers. Quite clearly, the content is more vomitus and disturbing than anything Brenda Leyland wrote. (3)

Why No Opinion Polls in the Press

Thomas K. Grose wrote a Time article five months after Madeleine’s disappearance, entitled “The McCann’s Trial by Media”. He pointed out a Yougov poll published in the Sunday Times had found only 20 percent of Britains thought the McCanns entirely innocent.

This is significant because the McCanns like to make out they ran the media gauntlet straight away. In Portugal, they certainly did; however, as Grose points out, their treatment in Britain for the most part was highly favorable during that time.

Therefore, the few dissenting voices against them were hardly to blame for the low levels of public support. Moreover, there are even less dissenting views in the press than there were seven years ago. (4)

Nevertheless, evidence indicates the McCanns are still unpopular.

Post Leyland an Easypoll established that 88 percent of people believe the McCanns abduction claims are bogus. I agree with the McCann supporters that these sorts of polls are easy to manipulate. (5) However, the above numbers are similar enough to the Yougov poll. Furthermore, there is much anecdotal evidence corroborating the numbers. Numerous MSM outlets like the Express forego their comments section entirely or delete negative McCann comments. There is a reason for this censure.

One month before Leylands death IBT (International Business Times) discussed McCanns suing of the Sunday Times in 2013. What is of interest is the McCanns dissing the paper for allowing comments from punters. As if to prove a point, IBT and the Independent (who also published an article about the McCann trolling manifesto) kept their comments sections open. The opinions concerning the McCanns were unanimously negative on both sites. (6) (7)

The McCanns leave us with the two possibilities. The first being they likely thought they would win public support outing Leyland. If this is the case, their advisers are apparently mistaken.

Leyland, for all her foibles, would now have Twitter followers numbering in the tens of thousands. The second possibility conjoins with the first. Many believe Team McCann also chose Leyland as an “example” to scare ordinary people out of speaking critically. This is a rather scary allegation, and it shall form the basis of Part II of this article.

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